In Part 1 of this series, we dove deep into high theory. You might have felt a bit heady as we reached those heights and have wondered: “Well, what’s the point of all that?” Indeed, there is a risk here that we view the subject disproportionately, not properly considering human dignity in relation to legislation; not by underemphasizing it, as I suggested we do now, but by giving it so much explicit emphasis that we fall into the opposite error. I think here, then, we would do well to consider the classic consideration of justice, to which all law tends, and the position of human dignity in relation to it. By this, I think we will be able to have a proper view of the subject. This will also prepare us to consider the proper function of Parliament and legislators in our constitutional and social context.
(c) Human dignity in relation to political justice and law
What is the position of justice in the political State? After much reflection, I find myself brought to think that a separation between legal justice and political justice cannot be too nicely drawn. How shall I express this to you? Perhaps the musings of Burke’s capacious mind may assist me here:
“It is with the greatest difficulty that I am able to separate policy from justice. Justice itself is the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”[1]
For indeed not only is the State, but so are individual human relationships but tottering husks without justice. With reason does Plato give us the example of an association of robbers.[2] They cannot be just, because their lifestyle, and the basis of their association is the perpetuation of injustice. Nevertheless, they must imitate something of justice among themselves. If they do not ‘justly’ apportion the spoils of their injustice among themselves, then there will arise among themselves dissentions, discord, and the destruction of their iniquitous band. How much truer must this be of the most perfect, as in complete, of all human associations, that of political society? “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society”.[3] Thus, Madison. It is a truth universally recognized that justice is the organizing principle of the State. But what is this thing called justice?
Ulpian gives us the classic definition. “Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to each person the right due to him.”[4] It is at bottom a matter of obligation. We are social and political beings, and by force of this our nature we are obliged to acknowledge the legitimate claims of the other. At this point I think modern Augustinian thought helps take our argument forward.[5] In the most reductive sense, then, justice is a formal guarantee that one’s zone of autonomy is respected where that ‘bubble’ meets that of the other; basically, a security against conflict. This is indeed useful and required by any workable political society. But it is not a sufficient conception of justice. For if politics, and the law which that process creates, is ultimately at the service of the human person and the flourishing of the individual in community, then it must follow that it must also reverence human life, and the rights necessary to personhood.[6]
So, the virtue of authentic compassion as required by human dignity, as I said earlier, ought to be at the heart of legislative deliberation. What we have just considered adds to this, in that justice which is the end of political society is identified with the upholding of human dignity. Dignity in upholding the justice of interpersonal agreements, and in interpersonal relationships, sure, but also dignity in establishing laws conducive, either directly or indirectly, to the integral development of the human person in all his dimensions as a rational subject: “physical, social, cultural, moral and spiritual”.[7] The dialogical process of legislative deliberation already requires, if it is to serve the common good, a certain level of openness to the other in listening and conversing, and, I submit that this must be done by placing the human person and human dignity, the dignity of a social and rational subject, at the centre of such deliberation.[8] Only thus may the true end of political society, of human flourishing, be served and so each be given that which is by right due to him. So, it is in considering what is required by the proper development of human persons in their physical, social, cultural, moral and spiritual elements and the contribution the State can make to facilitating flourishing in those areas that legislative deliberation may serve the demands of justice. As such, a mere reduction of justice to the bare bones of respecting individual autonomy and the rights appertaining thereto cannot be right.
As directly touching assisted suicide, I think the whole argument thus far may be briefly summarised thus. Human beings are not merely desire bundles or biological organisms, but constitute rather a psychosomatic unity with capacities for reason, relationality, and apprehending objective goods (what we called “transcendence”. The dignity of these persons is best understood as grounded in their nature which is made up of those capacities, and not in some sovereign autonomy. Now, law is an expression of and shapes human relationality inasmuch as it shapes the social reality of life. So, the State must legislate to respect the human person as such, and not rather embody a choice-based model of dignity which tends towards consumerism. Thus, to permit assisted suicide based on a view of the autonomous individual as sovereign corrupts the social meaning of the law and the duty of the State to protect and foster the conditions for human dignity to be expressed. It is thus incumbent on Parliament to reject the Bill.
(d) The Relation of Public Opinion to Parliament
But what about a public which might want the bill to pass in any case? Should not the representatives of the people accede to the wishes of their constituents? I think here two basic issues are raised. The relationship between positive law and moral values, and the relationship of individual legislators to their constituents. I will begin by addressing the connection of law and morality, and Dicey, the apparent prophet of parliamentary sovereignty gives us a good springboard for our discussion; he says:
“Lawyers are apt to speak as though the legislature were omnipotent, as they do not require to go beyond its decisions. It is, of course, omnipotent in the sense that it can make whatever laws it pleases, inasmuch as a law means any rule which has been made by the legislature. But from the scientific point of view, the power of the legislature is of course strictly limited. It is limited, so to speak, both from within and from without; from within, because the legislature is the product of a certain social condition, and determined by whatever determines the society; and from without, because the power of imposing laws is dependent upon the instinct of subordination, which is itself limited. If a legislature decided that all blue-eyed babies should be murdered, the preservation of blue-eyed babies would be illegal; but legislators must go mad before they could pass such a law, and subjects be idiotic before they could submit to it.”[9]
For Dicey, the internal limitation on sovereign power is determined by how far the will of the legislator is willing to go, and the external limitation is determined by how far the people are willing to tolerate the actions of the legislator.[10] That would be the formulation of the principle as regards the legislature’s power to act positively. As regards the people’s power to make the legislature act, one might say that if popular will is strong, and the legislature willing to, for whatever reason of agreement or mere political convenience, pander to the public, then something will be made into law. Likewise, if there is a congruence between the legislature and the people as to some object (irrespective of its objective merits) not being worthy of legislation, then it will not become law. The rectitude of a matter is not, in practical terms, relevant to whether the legislative will may be effective. Rather, the congruence between the legislature and the people’s willingness to submit, or approve of a measure, which determines an effectual exercise of power.
In this vein I think we may adapt and develop some useful observations Justice Kennedy made extrajudicially about the nature of legislative power in a pluralistic society.[11] He observes that certain essential rights and values must exist in any society. They, as I have argued, therefore precede any contingent arrangement of the political community because they inhere in the transcendent nature of the social and political animal that is the human being. So, a just society will secure certain fundamental rights as essential to its nature as a just society, one which respects human dignity. Nevertheless, the current state of our society is one where there are conflicting views of the ultimate good of man. Such views may indeed conflict with the true good to which the constitution ought to be ordered. Yet in our system, as in America, “citizens have the political liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense, subject to correction in the ordinary political process”.[12]
The ordinary political process, that is a key phrase. We must, of course, adapt it to the British context. In his Reith Lectures, Lord Sumption observes that in the British political system, at least in the last century, moral questions have been partially settled through the legislature, and he cites there the legislative debates on the Abortion Act.[13] Here we see an interaction between the public, its views, and the effect of legislative will in crystallizing these views as social norms regulated by stable rules. I think when we are confronted with this problem of law and public opinion, we are faced with the basic limitation of my discussion. It is all very well that these principles which I have proposed exist. It is another matter that they will in fact be implemented, for the bettering of the condition of the people and the longer endurance of the constitution’s health. I should resort to our earlier Augustinian thinking: it is by individual transformation, by convincing of people at an individual level that we can embody the right principles in the constitution. It is, to use what some readers might think an old-fashioned term, a matter of conversion of the intellect. Institutions, after all, are shells without the people who constitute them. Nevertheless, this duty of appealing to our fellow citizens’ intellects is the duty of the conscientious citizen, who as a freeman is obliged to participate in political society and seek the good of his country and his constitution. I fear, however, that I must echo the words of the Earl of Iddesleigh in the debates on the 1967 Act, but for our present context. “We have our duties to the State, and on this occasion our duty will almost certainly be to go down to defeat, although we shall have with us a few persons who think well of our arguments”.[14]
That itself is a remarkable statement, and conflicts directly with what Lord Purvis, as we saw earlier, seemed to imply about the legislator’s duty in relation to giving effect to popular will.[15] Burke firmly notes that as members of the one national legislature, it is the duty of all members of that legislature to pursue the one national interest and not to engage in factionalism.[16] Individual legislators must use that judgement deliberatively and carefully, in service of the truth, and not in slavish subservience to the whims of their constituents, for indeed the constituents chose first him, not specific policies which may have to change as the common good demands.[17] This applies to the unelected representatives of the people in the House of Lords too, because whilst they in theory represent themselves (hence why they cannot vote in elections to the Commons), they do so in order that they may serve the national interest. They too have a will, a mind, and a judgment which must be used in service of the nation. As Burke says:
“But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,-no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”[18]
There is good reason for this approach, which Lord Sumption well gives us hints of.[19] A professional governing class may be expected to be more reflective in its approach, have more mature judgment and a greater amount of information, and an outlook broader than the narrow personal interests which will necessarily affect one who daily serves the interests of a narrower circle. All this must be done in service of the ultimate interest, for the human dignity of the people of the nation to be more fully served and realised in the polity.
Various Lords opposed to the Bill in principle, perceiving that it will probably pass, have nevertheless sponsored amendments to ameliorate its ill-effects, to defang it to some extent. I think that we may soundly say this is in the national interest, and not opposed to their duty either moral or political. Indeed, it is in service of human dignity. Here, I think the work of Augustine helps again for a theoretical justification. Of the vice of prostitution, while condemning it, Augustine said that it should be tolerated because, at least during his time, if it were prohibited there would have been social unrest.[20] This was proven in fact in France when Louis IX’s attempt to make it illegal provoked riots, and it is likely that unrest would have persisted had such a policy been enforced. For the character of the people at that time was such that it was better to tolerate that vice, and to instead restrict it so far as the external constraints on the legislative power permitted (as Louis IX later did), than to entirely forbid it. I think therefore that while permitting assisted suicide is misguided in principle by introducing and making easier a wrong which will undermine human dignity, an argument by analogy may be made in favour of supporting amendments to soften the effects of the Bill. That is, I see implicit in Augustine’s argument a more general principle that if a wrong is likely to be unstoppable, we should seek to restrict the negatives which may result from it.
Conclusion
Well, this series has grown longer than I had anticipated! In it I have sought to extract from the debate in the Upper Chamber of Parliament constitutional principles and norms which are essential to the operation of a constitution supportive of liberty and the common good. I have argued that the human person must be seen as an integral whole, whose whole good must be supported from natural life to natural death in all its vital elements. I argued that at the basis of any constitution, that for which it basically exists, is the integral good of the human person. I have also considered the position of public opinion to Parliament, and to the function of individual legislators. I hope it is useful to your own thinking about our constitution. I certainly believe it makes a novel contribution to thinking about the British constitution.
I end by apologising for imperfections and errors in style or fact which I may have made, which are all entirely unintentional.
[1] Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France and Other Writings (Everyman’s Library 2015) 562
[2] The Republic 351c
[3] James Madison, The Federalist, No. 51
[4] Justiniani Institutiones, Lib. I.1: “Iustitia est constans et perpetua volutatis ius suum enique tribuens”. Birks and McLeod give this as their translation of the sentence: “Justice is an unswerving and perpetual determination to acknowledge all men’s rights” (Justinian’s Institutes, Cornell University Press 1987) 38.
[5] Leo XIV, Address on the Jubilee of Justice (20September 2025) <https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/september/documents/20250920-giubileo-operatori-giustizia.html> accessed 9 October 2025
[6] ibid
[7] Leo XIV, Address to Participants in the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the International Catholic Legislators Network (23 August 2025) < https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/august/documents/20250823-legislatori-cattolici.html> accessed 9 October 2025
[8] Leo XIV, Address to Members of the ‘Working Group on Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue’ of the European Parliament <https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/september/documents/20250929-interreligious-dialogue.html> accessed 9 October 2025
[9] AV Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (5th edn. Liberty Fund 1915/2004) 103
[10] ibid
[11] Anthony M. Kennedy, ‘Unenumerated Rights and the Dictates of Judicial Restraint’ (1986) 13-14 <https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20070622010515/http://www.andrewhyman.com/1986kennedyspeech.pdf> accessed 9 October 2025
[12] Ibid, 14
[13] Lord Sumption, ‘Law and the Decline of Politics’ (BBC Reith Lectures, 2019): “What is quite striking is that some of the most impressive and informative debates that have happened within our lifetimes in the House of Commons have been directed to just such an issue. For example, the abortion debates surrounding the 1967 Abortion Act were very remarkable in the extent to which MPs debated in an informed and enlightened way the issues involved, and I think that that was one reason why in this country, as in most of Europe, abortion has now become relatively uncontroversial, whereas in the United States, where it was a matter of judicial decision, it remains extremely controversial. Partly, I think, because the decision there was made in a way which marginalised the contribution of the electorate at large”. <https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2019/Reith_2019_Sumption_lecture_3.pdf> accessed 9 October 2025
[14] Hansard HL Deb. vol. 270 col. 1236, 30 November 1965 (The Earl of Iddesleigh)
[15] Hansard HL Deb. vol. 848 col. 1866, 12 September 2025 (Lord Purvis of Tweed)
[16]Edmund Burke, ‘Speech to the Electors of Bristol’ (3 November 1774) in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (vol. 2, John C. Nimmo 1887)
[17] ibid
[18] ibid
[19] Lord Sumption, ‘Law and the Decline of Politics’ (BBC Reith Lectures, 2019)
[20] Augustine of Hippo, De Ordine, Book 2, ch. 4.
The Legal Microscope 
Leave a comment